


Incentive to Hatch

by Deuterosis



Category: World Trigger (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen, Serpent Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26518624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deuterosis/pseuds/Deuterosis
Summary: While in the Neighborhood, Hatohara encounters someone who claims she can help her with her problem.  (T only because of minor death mentions.)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6
Collections: Banned Banned Together Bingo 2020, Banned Together Bingo 2020





	Incentive to Hatch

“A long road stretches ahead of you, I see.”

“I'm sorry?”

“You are a foreign warrior on a mission. Am I correct?”

The woman sat apart in the bazaar, shielded from the sun by a blanket propped up with sticks. As in other booths of that type, a shadowed array of goods lay draped behind her.

“It's good that you happened by my booth. One might even consider it the aid of Fate.”

Hatohara knew the shopkeeper wished to offer wares, but didn't expect her to reach into her cloak and produce a vial thick and maroon in her hand.

Its purpose: “A folk remedy, to help you on your journey.”

“A remedy for what?”

“Your combat nausea.” This phrase, which Hatohara hadn't heard before, made her heart jump with its improbable familiarity. The shopkeeper continued: “I know it by the way you carry yourself. A gap in your confidence here that no great amount of skill can ever surmount.”

It would be difficult to dismiss these confident statements as nonsense or trickery, given Hatohara's knowledge of two things: her own shortcomings, and the enhanced sensory perception granted by Side Effects. The eyes of the seated woman are beautiful, distractingly so - but also odd. The flecks in her irises look more like a loose mosaic of glass triangles pressed into their basic black-brown.

Inadvertently, Hatohara became so lost in them she quite forgot about what the woman was offering until she raised the capped vial between their faces as a reminder.

“I recommend you at least consider it. Those who can't attack even Trion bodies won't last very long in multi-world travels.” Advice that entered Hatohara's ears as an echo of old admonishment.

“What is this exactly?”

“The lifeblood of a venomous serpent peculiar to this Nation. It's been well-documented in our medical literature as a cure for combat nausea. Drink it, and find yourself free of your psychological shackles.”

The color within the cloudy Trion vessel captured the light and glowed dully with the death it represented. It entered Hatohara's hand, almost despite herself; this couldn't be the medicine woman's doing, for her own hadn't moved further.

“...How much for it?”

“No charge. I am a healer. My mission is to help those who cannot help themselves.”

“Thank you,” Hatohara said, answered by a magnanimous gesture common to keepers here bidding farewells to their patrons.

With lead in her step, the Border agent - former agent, she understood - left to regroup with her makeshift squad. She nearly expected the healer to disappear behind her, as in the movies. But when she glanced, the woman still sat there, still scanning the passersby. 

* * *

If she drank poison in a Trion body, would it kill her more quickly, or would the Trion somehow filter the toxin away?

During her lookout shift as the four-member squad rested in an alley, Hatohara uncapped the vial as part of her evaluation. It smelled like blood, not arsenic or cyanide.

Would such a thing really wash away the reason she'd left Earth with a team of civilians, breaking every rule of Border? If it did, would that be only placebo?

Her allies couldn't help her with this choice. One was against it for the potential danger, another in favor, having now seen enough of the Neighborhood to know their party could use all the help it could get. The third told the truth: that only she could make the final decision.

Her own mind gave her three different answers as well. In a sense, now that she had it, it would waste the sacrifice of the exsanguinated snake, or snakes, assuming they were killed to obtain this treatment. And part of her did want to be free of the chain that had shut off from her the official, sanctioned conduit to the Neighborhood worlds.

Yet still, another part feared the promise of that loss. Her “combat nausea” formed part of whom she was. Who would she be - what would she become - if that part changed? Would it bring a ripple effect? Would she cease to be Hatohara Mirai?

In the end, as the burden of the watch dragged on her, she slipped the vial into her pack rather than discarding it, or resolving to seek the healer later and return it.

In an emergency, maybe. If there was no choice left. It couldn't hurt then.


End file.
